


The Wisdom of running away

by numbika



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Discworld - Freeform, Discworld References, Funny, Octarine, Sourcerer, Talking, Wizard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-28 00:11:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18200858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/numbika/pseuds/numbika
Summary: A sourcerer who found himself in a situation where even his near limitless powers meant nothing gets help from a wizard who is the master of getting into and out of hopeless situations, using no magic to do it whatsoever.





	The Wisdom of running away

The sourcerer sat alone in the edge of the roiling destruction, eyes fixated on the centre of the magical storm. A single tower, a building which was once no doubt built to be majestic, now slowly swayed in the battering.

A silvery brick slipped from the others, and falling, disintegrated in the swirling energies. Then the storm quieted down, and the swaying of the tower ceased, the bricks began to slowly rematerialize.

On the highest level, a wizard, clad in robes that would have suggested for the casual observer that he has fallen down the stairs of his home carrying at least a dozen buckets of paints, strolled out into a balcony.

The wind, now entirely natural, played with his long flowing beard, ruffling it like a rowdy child.

The wizard raised his staff to the heavens, shouted something that was swallowed by the distance from his observer, and an emerald light flashed out, heading towards a barely visible speck on the horizon. As it splashed against its unseen target, reality bent, and started to distort at the edges. The sourcerer could smell the colour of octarine even from this far, as time started to wilt and drip in the distance.

The observer tore his gaze away from the spectacle and concentrated on a small village, situated roughly in the middle of the distance between the target and the tower. It was in a bad shape.

Some of the houses were destroyed by the wind, or even earlier magical attacks. Roofs were torn away by ethereal forces, walls that became liquid from the residual splash of magical energy, letting the house buckle under their own weight. And those were the relatively mundane damages.

A street performer juggling in the middle of the square was stuck in a time loop, every minute he dropped his balls, and started to run with terrified expression, just to flash back to his place after a couple of meters. The hole that formed the well not far from him was somehow turned inside out. A black column was pointing towards the sky, water inside of it wobbling slightly in the air. The road towards one of the houses was turned into solid gold, unfortunately, it also glowed with so much inherent heat that it could burn a man to ashes from two steps away.

A group of unfortunate sheep, their owners probably didn’t have time to evacuate them, formed an impromptu cult in a meadow on the other side of the village. They erected a statue depicting a mighty shear and chanted to it every day to deliver them from their troubles.

Another flash of negative light draws the sorcerer’s gaze away from the destroyed township. An answer came from the speck in the horizon, no doubt another mage tower. A swarm of black tendrils coiling around the building, as if they were trying to strangle it.

The wizard on the balcony struggled to stay upright and fell to its knees, grabbing his staff with both of his hand. Light tickled out from it, slowly dissipating the tendrils.

“They just never stop do they?” Mused the sourcerer, glancing backwards, there was no one behind him, so he sighed and waved his hands.

The air behind him became sticky, and with a small whistling sound and a pop a man appeared behind him, with a painful _thomp._ There was some struggling with some sort of a ceremonial cape, and the man finally pushed himself upright. He was scrawny, with a scraggly beard, and a slightly creased hat. Upon which the word _'Wizzard'_ was embellished in goldish letters.

“What the…who the damned hell are you? “Asked the man when he finally managed to push himself up. “I will warn you that if you try to harm me my luggage will come and eat you."

“This statement came so sincerely that the sourcerer couldn’t help but blink in surprise.

“Will it? By my power that is one hell of an accomplishment from a traveling container.”

“It has teeth. And legs.” The sourcerer blinked again. He was pretty sure he wanted to converse with the most accomplished wizard. In the whole span of history from beginning to end, but somehow, he must have made some serious mistake.

“That really is a remarkable traveling container. Um, sorry but I didn’t catch your name?”

“Well neither I catched yours so I don’t know why I should tell you m-” The words stuck inside Rincewind's throat as the black tendrils around the tower finally broke, and the wizard in the balcony created a flaming bird, the size of a small island, and sent it away in a raging inferno.

Even though Rincewind himself wasn’t a very good wizard he could easily recognize 'Mundodo-s Little Sparkling bird' when he seen the spell. It was one of the first ones the students learned at the UU.

It supposed to create a small, about five-centimeter-tall songbird, made from sparks that chirped for about ten seconds before disappearing. The sparks didn’t even hurt that much, they just kind of stung a little.

This thing on the other hand was an absolute giant, blazing like the heart of the sun, and outshining the aforementioned celestial object for miles.

“My name is Maligree.” Said the Sourcerer sitting in the stony outcrop. When he noticed that the wizard was still engrossed in the spectacle, he cleared his throat. “And you would be…”

“Rincewind” Swallowed the wizard and slowly closed his mouth. “Where…” He shook his head remembering bits from a half slept through history lesson, and his own escapades with someone who wielded that much of a power in the past. Maligree, as in Garden of Maligree, as in a sourcerer.

“When I am?”

“Good question, Century of the Giant sloth I afraid.”

“The Giant Sloth-” Rincewind's mouth moved in silence, the part of his brain responsible, trying to imagine the immense distance of time. Then it gave up and simply put out a “Service temporary unavailable” sign and gone to have a quick lunch. “That was-”

“Please don’t. I am not supposed to play with the future. Even this is probably a bit too much. Reality gets really pissy when you start rearranging the order of events, learned that the hard way. A whole island sunk, a real mess to clean up, although-“

The sourcerer glanced towards the two towers exchanging magical artillery fire, when an orange bolt came from somewhere else and impacted this tower from the back. Another player joined into the little scuffle.

“This promise to be even bigger. Actually, that’s why I summoned you. I need some advice.”

“From me?” Blinked Rincewind in absolute confusion. He could hardly give advice about magical problems, since his magical abilities usually started and ended with being able to be used as the occult equivalent of a lightning rod.

“From the most accomplished mage of the entire timeline. But my magic got you instead, so I decided to just roll with it. So, my problem is, this-“

Maligree motioned towards the tower which now started to rapid-fire small but potent spells towards the direction where the orange flash came from.

“…magical war. Wars to be specific. Plural. This going on everywhere. And I don’t know what to do. If I use my magic to stop them, it just pumps rawer energy out into the atmosphere of the disc. By the time I finished on one side of the world, the other became even worse, and then once again when I got the time to go there. It’s a never-ending war of wizards. There is just always more popping up. I tell you humans enjoy sex too much. “

Rincewind rubbed his face trying to disguise the scarlet red blush that spread through it from the last statement.

“Well, umm I don’t know about that much. In our time, Wizards aren’t allowed to marry. And regardless, I am not much of an adviser. I usually just kind of-“He trailed of, gazing into the strange incandescent eyes of the sourcerer. He decided not to lie or embellish the truth in any way shape or form. “-Run away. That’s what I am good at.”

The sourcerer thought about that a little.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. I am responsible for this.” The tower was struck by a giant, ethereal hand made from clouds and rainbows spun together into a solid form. The hand started to pummel the building, and the wizard on the balcony tried to fend it off by throwing globules of light at it.

“In my time-“ Rincewind licked his dry lips. One of the globules came awfully close to the rock they were conversing on, and turned a circular area of grass into solid, jet black obsidian.

“In my time there is a saying. The wizard's real job is not to know when to perform magic. It is to know when NOT to. Almost any magic user can turn someone into a newt, but only few have the inner strength of not doing it, after they know how easy it would be.”

Maligree rubbed his chin and looked into Rincewinds eyes with a twinge of respect.

“Well, well, well, there is more to you than it meets the eye.” Smiled the Sourcerer and Rincewind didn’t have the heart to tell him that this little speech was presented at every opening of the year ceremony at the UU, so much so that the students took up the habit to replace certain words to various profanities when repeating it back to the faculty.

“I admit there is wisdom in what you say. My own leaking magical energy is what causing the problem, I can’t just solve it with more magic. I think I will leave the disc, or “Run away” as you put in simpler terms. Maybe make my own universe, my secret garden of sort.”

“Put in deers. Deers are always popular.” Blurted out Rincewind, and Maligree once again smiled.

“One again. Wise, I will include some of them. Thank you for your advice Rincewind. I hope you will have some interesting adventures in the future. ” He waved his hand, and the air became sticky again.

“Oh gods I hope not.” Blurted out the wizard, before disappearing in a small plop.

Maligree blinked after him.

“Strange fellow.” And with that he turned back towards the duelling wizards. The wizard tower closest to him crumbled, and broke in the middle. The magical bricks that held up the structure started to disintegrate as their owners energy ran out, and he was unable to maintain them. Before that, the pieces of the tower crushed their erstwhile maker in his fall. Almost immediately, the distant speck, and the unknown other power that sent the orange lighting, started to bombard each other.

Maligree sighed and took out a book from under his robes. It was a big tome, covered in magical symbols, and a thick cover. He placed it gingerly on the rock where he was sitting before and stood up cracking his back.

“Let’s see how to start that Garden-“

Behind him, inside the oldest magical book on the disc, indeed in fact one of the oldest things in existence was slowly thinking. Inside it eight mighty spells mulled over what they learned from the meeting of their current holder and the future wizard. Strange fellow indeed.

Strange, and in a way, promising.


End file.
